Transaction processing has typically involved intensive manual effort and, in instances where automatic processing has been used, intensive user intervention. For example, many transaction processes involve the use of a variety of different types of transaction documents such as orders, invoices, receipts and bills of lading (BOL). These types of transaction documents include information associated with the transaction and used by parties to the transaction to monitor and process the transaction. Many of these and other types of transactions occur on a cyclic or other recurring basis, with elements to the transaction that repeat. While repetitive in nature, certain elements of transactions, such as delivery confirmation and payment, are typically addressed on an individual transaction cycle or period basis.
Cyclic and other recurring transaction documents are electronically processed for a multitude of different types of applications. Interaction data (e.g., electronic or physical documents) describing characteristics of a particular transaction is often encountered in varied temporal order at transaction locations that assemble these documents into logical packages for automated processing. For example, there are often multiple parties to the transaction in addition to the common buyer and seller, such as shippers, financial institutions, distributors and regulatory agencies (e.g., customs, taxation agencies). Each of these parties often provides one or more different types of documents that relate to the transaction, and provides these documents at different times. For instance, an invoice may be sent for a cyclic transaction prior to goods or services for the transaction being accepted. Moreover, the quantity of items for certain cyclic transactions widely vary over time, with associated changes in billing and inventory needing to be made. In addition, different parties to a cyclic transaction often use unique accounting-type data, with automated processing limited to specific transaction parties or specific transaction interactions, with little flexibility.
Many cyclic transactions rely upon control data for controlling many different aspects of the transaction. Transaction terms such as those relating to the quantity of goods and/or services, the price per unit of goods and/or services, delivery conditions, payment terms and more are generally set before the transaction is executed and upon a transaction-by-transaction basis. When changes to transaction terms are made, related data must be updated. At times, these changes require changes for two or more parties to the transaction, with interaction required to adequately address the changes. Thus, when a user makes changes to transaction terms, manual interaction between the user and other parties to the transaction is typically required to ensure that the changes are made for all parties.
Another type of incompatibility that has made cyclic transaction processing difficult is related to the common scenario wherein reference numbers or codes used by different parties are not compatible. For example, in transactions involving buyers and sellers, sellers maintain transaction data organized using their own reference numbers or codes. Buyers typically must access the data using a seller's reference number or codes rather than the buyer's reference number. In addition, buyers and sellers typically use different reference numbers or codes for different characteristics of the transaction, making the monitoring and management of recurring transactions difficult. In particular, where changes are made to recurring transactions, as is more likely over time as relative, for example, to one-time transactions, those changes are difficult to monitor and respond to.
Payment and billing related aspects of traditional recurring transactions are particularly susceptible to billing errors and fraud. For example, there often is little to no connection between the delivery of goods and the billing for the delivery and/or the goods, or no connection between different types of accounting information used for related delivery and billing purposes. This may result in double billing, no billing at all, or overbilling. Auditing errors that cause incorrect billing or payment may also occur. In addition, payment can often be delayed while aspects of a particular transaction are being audited and/or disputed, particularly when different transaction documents must be manually parsed and processed. In addition, when the terms of a recurring transaction are changed, the implementation of those changes is often difficult to address for ensuring proper payment and billing. Delay associated with billing reduces working capital resources for parties to the transaction waiting for payment. Moreover, as time passes, payment events such as payment initiation and termination events may vary in occurrence and type.
Additional costs also arise as a result of existing inefficiencies in a variety of recurring transaction-processing approaches. Many of the costs are individually small, but very large in the aggregate. For example, typical parties to transactions incur administrative costs including those relating to creating and delivering transaction documents, resolving billing disputes, providing a signed copy of documents to other parties and posting accounts receivable. In addition, the cost of parsing, recognizing and categorizing documents related to these and other items add to the administrative costs of transactions.
An additional challenge to transaction management is related to the inability to obtain immediate information regarding a transaction. Transaction data from one party is typically not readily available to other transaction parties without direct access to private-party systems. Since the process of interacting and sharing data for transaction management is largely conducted manually, it is very difficult to track a transaction and real-time data is particularly difficult to come by. For example, there are various manual steps involved in order to learn of the status of performance or payment for a recurring transaction.
The above and other difficulties associated with the management and coordination of transactions have presented challenges to transaction processing, and in particular, to the processing of recurring transactions with the various unique aspects related thereto.